Manufacturers of consumer products packaged in bottles, glass or plastic containers, such as drugs, cosmetics or edible substances, make extensive use of automatic machinery to fill empty containers with the appropriate contents, cap the containers, apply a label, etc. A typical container processing line comprises a plurality of processing stations performing specific operations on containers dispensed in succession from a supply bin. Usually, the containers in the supply bin, are in a completely random disposition, hence a container orienting apparatus is required to first unscramble and then feed the containers to the processing line in a serial uniform spacing order. Glass containers cannot be put in a supply bin like other containers, the unscrambling operation would simply break the glass containers. These glass containers are normally packaged in boxes with compartments for each containers and must be handle very gently by feeding apparatus.
Existing devices for feeding containers to a conveyor belt suffer from numerous drawbacks, namely inefficiency, slow speed and undue complexity. Some devices can only feed containers in rows parallel to the direction of travel of the receiving conveyor belt. In most cases, round containers cannot be fed in an orderly fashion due to the fact that they are likely to overlap between rows and be improperly aligned. Often, without proper control of the container feeding action, the containers will remain randomly positioned when entering the receiving conveyor belt. Often transfer from one conveyor belt to the next without proper guidance creates an area where containers are only half engaged on the receiving conveyor belt resulting in random orientation of the containers and even toppling over of a container causing an interruption of the container feeding sequence.
Considering the popularity of this type of feeding apparatus, there is a strong demand for a feeding apparatus that is fast, efficient, simple and better adapted to fragile containers and to severe conditions.